View full sizeRandy L. Rasmussen, The OregonianThe Rev. LeRoy Haynes (left) and the Rev. T. Allen Bethel (center), representing the Coalition on Justice and Police Reform and the Albina Ministerial Alliance, spoke to a small gathering outside the Portland Police Bureau's Northeast Precinct on Wednesday evening. The pastors praised the bureau for the firing of Officer Ronald Frashour for his fatal shooting of Aaron M. Campbell and encouraged even more police accountability.

The driving rain kept the crowd small and the evening prayer vigil short.

"Almighty and everlasting God," began the Rev. LeRoy Haynes of the Albina Ministerial Alliance. "We believe you have had your hand on us in this journey toward justice. You have shaken the walls of City Hall."

The ministers' alliance and its Coalition for Peace and Justice Reform has held vigils in the past. Each time an unarmed person dies in an encounter with Portland police officers, the group demands public accountability and reform of the bureau's deadly force policy and practice. But this time, there was cause for cautious hope.

"It's about time," said the Rev. T. Allen Bethel, president of the alliance and the senior pastor of Maranatha Church in Northeast Portland, adding that the latest disciplinary actions are a first, small step toward greater reforms. "We do not want any criminal element in our community held unaccountable," he said, including "citizens employed by the police bureau."

The Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition on Justice and Police Reform

The group includes the Oregon chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and Mental Health America, Disability Rights of Oregon, the Portland Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, Oregon Action, Sisters of the Road, Basic Rights Oregon, Portland Copwatch, Rose City Copwatch, Oregon Progressive Party, Mental Health Association of Portland, National Action Network – Oregon, Individuals for Justice, First Unitarian Church, A New Day Forward and Real Wealth of Portland. Its goals:

* A federal investigation of the Portland Police Bureau by the Justice Department that would include criminal and civil rights violations, and an audit of patterns and practices.

* A stronger Independent Police Review Division and the Citizen Review Committee with the power to compel testimony.

* A full review, with diverse citizen participation, of the bureau's excessive force and deadly force policies and training.

*Changes in Oregon law on the use of deadly force by police.

* Establish a special prosecutor for police cases that involve excessive and deadly force.

"When a crisis happens in the African American community, the first question is always, 'Where are the pastors,'" Haynes says. "That's not a question that comes up in the white community."

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Haynes and Bethel are two of the most visible members of the Albina Ministerial Alliance, a group that represents 125 churches – many of them predominantly African American –in North and Northeast Portland. Their pastors have influence that reaches beyond the people in their pews, says Haynes senior pastor of Allen Temple Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. People in trouble – who haven't the means or access to information or people in power – look to their pastors for community leadership.

The Albina Ministerial Alliance has its roots in the 1950s and '60s, when African American pastors in Portland and across the country demanded civil rights for people of color, more and better job opportunities, housing and schools in their neighborhoods.

"The black church has always been the beacon in the black community," says the Rev. William T. Turner, pastor of Trinity Full Gospel Pentecostal Church in Northeast Portland, and a member of the ministerial alliance. "Centuries ago, it was a rallying place where you could come and belong, educated or not." African American churches were central to the civil rights movement, and they continue to advocate, Turner says, not just for their own members, but for others who need a voice.

Police reform, today's most pressing issue for the alliance, is only its latest advocacy effort. The group incorporated as a nonprofit in 1971. At its peak in the late 1990s, the alliance had 50 active members, oversaw a budget of $1 million – mostly from grants – and offered a range of social services in North and Northeast Portland.

"We had day and night care for children, transitional housing, energy bill relief, parenting classes, health programs," says Bishop Grace C. Osborne, pastor of Grace Covenant Fellowship Church in Northeast Portland. She says she was "drafted" into the alliance 20 years ago by her late husband, a busy pastor who encouraged his wife to attend the meetings. "It was a little intimidating at first," she says. All the other pastors were men, some of whom objected to a woman taking part. A few were less than gracious, Osborne says, but she didn't back down. "Now there are a handful of women," she says, "and a few white pastors involved."

Randy L. Rasmussen, The OregonianThe Rev. LeRoy Haynes (second from left) prays at a vigil outside the Portland Police Bureau's Northeast Precinct on Wednesday evening. He and the Rev. T. Allen Bethel (right), representing the Coalition on Justice and Police Reform and the Albina Ministerial Alliance, praised the bureau for the firing of Officer Ronald Frashour for his fatal shooting of Aaron M. Campbell and encouraged even more police accountability.

In the beginning, the alliance included only African American pastors, says the Rev. Lynne Smouse López, pastor of Ainsworth United Church of Christ in Northeast Portland. The group is more diverse now, but its roots in the African American community are still important, she says.

"Portland is a very white city. Issues of race and issues of racism, things that people of color encounter, are often overlooked by other folks." The alliance fills "a great need," she adds, "helping the community feel like they have a voice, that they are listened to."

López has been active in the alliance since 1996, working on projects that aimed to stem the threat of gang violence. When grants for those projects disappeared, López stayed on to support other alliance activities –such as last year's regional preaching conference, the annual interfaith Martin Luther King observance and efforts to promote community wellness and encourage HIV testing.

The alliance has been concerned about police shootings since at least 2001, when Jose Santis Mejia Poot was shot by Portland police at a mental health treatment center. Poot had advanced toward officers with a metal rod that he had ripped from a door. Since then, and after subsequent fatal police shootings, the alliance has asked for more open investigations and police accountability.

In February, the alliance reached out to like-minded groups to form the Coalition on Justice and Peace Reform. More than a dozen groups, many of them secular, are coalition members.

"The idea is to mount a collective and more organized response," Bethel says. The coalition is pressing for an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department that would examine the Portland Police Bureau's policy and patterns involving the use of deadly force.

"What we're seeing is not just one particular neighborhood or one particular ethnic group," Bethel says. "This is a problem that touches everyone." He quotes Amos, the biblical prophet who envisioned justice flowing like water.

"Justice should be free-flowing, not hindered," Bethel says. "We want justice for everyone."